There is no reason in the world to take this
delightful
farcical
film seriously, that is, unless you are cast in the
role of a neurotic
director Rene (Leaud), who by the end of the film
cracks up and can't
finish
it. His one great line is, "This film is not a
game--it is very
important."
He was once a great film director known to be
temperamental but is now
on the rebound after his career went to pot, though he
still retains
his
tempestuous moods. He is remaking a 1915 Louis
Feuillade silent, Les
Vampires. He has cast the vivacious
Hong Kong movie
queen
Maggie Cheung as the film's star, even though she
speaks no French. He
wishes to make this into a silent black-and-white
film, having Cheung
dress
in a slinky tight latex outfit like Michelle Pfeiffer
did in Batman
Returns. He will have her be a cat
burglar, slinking
through
the dark and forbidden streets of Paris, stealing
jewels.

Cheung is the outsider, the star of Hong Kong action
films,
through
whose eyes we will see the film. Everyone she meets on
the set is
uptight,
rather bitchy, and nervously smoking, while she is
polite and
bewildered
as she greets them by trying not to offend anyone.
Later on she goes to
a film party with some journalists who attack how dull
French films
are,
claiming that they are made only for an elite
audience. The members of
the production crew, on the other hand, only complain
about personal
things
how everything is screwed up and tense for them, that
they are at the
mercy
of the director's whims.

The heart of the film is an exploration about what
makes a
film good.
The most interesting comment by the journalists, is
that the French
films
are too intellectual for their own good... ummm!
Cheung, meanwhile,
stays
aloof from this discussion, trying to concentrate on
her role in the
movie,
as the cinema verite technique is employed most
enjoyably to show the
movie
people interacting with each other.

The frenetic costume designer, Zoe (Richard), likes
girls
and develops
a crush on Cheung, but is scared to tell her. So her
friend Mireille
(Bulle),
the wife of one of the movie men, comes to her rescue
and tells the
embarrassed
Cheung this, which Cheung handles very tactfully.

We get a good idea of what is going on during a
shoot, and
it seems
like bizarre fun. Through Cheung's eyes we decide who
we really like
and
who we don't, but we are aware that she is always
discreet saying as
little
as possible about what she really thinks.

An odd scene, but a fairly powerful one, shows
Cheung back
in the
hotel, dressed in her slinky costume, really getting
into her part,
even
to the point where she tries to act out her part for
real, by robbing
the
nude woman (the Canadian director Atom Egoyan's
voluptuous wife,
Arsinee
Khanjian) of her jewels while she is arguing on the
phone with her
boyfriend.

There is some pretty good stuff in this anti-film
film that
is both
funny and revealing about how the people who make
films can often be
hypocrites,
faking their work, making it appear as a work of art.
What makes the
film
come together and work so well, is that you actually
believe this is
the
real thing and that you are on the set making the
picture with these
people.
The finale with the disgruntled and limited director,
Jose (Castel),
coming
in to replace Rene and firing Cheung, is truly a funny
scene.

Irma Vep turns out to be an anagram for vampire.
Indeed,
this is
a very clever idea for a film, whose love for film is
shown by the
filmmaker
in a resourceful way. And, love of film is the magical
point of the
film.
This is clearly seen in the final silent footage
scenes from the
robbery
with Cheung clad in black latex, which was shot by the
dismissed
director.
These scenes are homages to the love he felt for the
actress and the
part
she was playing. That was pure cinematic magic.